Feng Shui, Indigenous Day and VSOfest

Feng Shui, Indigenous Day and VSOfest

Want good development? Sort the Feng Shui.

For 70 years some of the greatest minds and most generous souls of this world have tried to find ways to improve the lives of those living in poverty in non-industrialised countries. Controlled economies, free economies, mixed economies, administrative governments, democratic reforms, limited governments, service provision, rights-promotion, market-led growth etc etc. However, I may have accidentally stumbled across one of the easiest options to improve the lives of the disadvantaged. To help the poor, thousands of local organisations exist trying to build the skills of people and yet, whilst the staff at these NGOs are incredibly dedicated they often lack the skills and professionalism to efficiently help the poor. One such organisation is BNKS, where I am currently volunteering. Throughout the last 10 months I have run about a dozen training courses trying to pass on skills to the staff but, arguably,  my biggest contribution has to suggest moving the office furniture round – yes, what I spent 4 years of learning at University could have easily been by-passed by watching home improvement/design shows on Channel 4. Previously, the BNKS office felt more like a temporary store room with desks haphazardly arranged and shelves in odd palaces. Now it feels like a real office and the staff seem to be working more professionally as individuals and as a team. It would be overstating it to say my other contributions have been worthless, because I know they have helped BNKS and I feel proud of the training, advice and support I have given them. It just I can’t help but laugh that there could be a place in development for a strange TV show called ‘Queer NGO eye for the straight NGO’.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

World Indigenous Day 2008  

On the 9^th of August BNKS, the indigenous people of Bandarban, one confused Derby boy and indigenous people throughout the world celebrated World Indigenous Day. The day serves the purpose of allowing indigenous people everywhere to celebrate their traditions and identity, increase awareness to people about indigenous people and to advocate for the rights of indigenous peoples. Indigenous peoples are roughly defined as ‘pre-invasion societies who demonstrate and seek to preserve characteristics, cultures, traditions and identities in accordance with their history and which are distinct from the dominant sectors of society’. Throughout history this group of peoples (there are currently roughly 370 million indigenous peoples in the world) have suffered from countless invasions, genocides, enslavement, discrimination and exploitation. This treatment was often at the hands of white European colonisers but now mostly inflicted by the dominant ethnic group of the state which they live in. World Indigenous Day allows these peoples the opportunity to promote both their value to the world and the rights denials they suffer from.

There are 45 communities in Bangladesh which recognise themselves as indigenous and they too have suffered from discrimination and exploitation and resultantly typically live in poverty and are powerless. The organisation I work for, BNKS, is an indigenous organisation which seeks to improve the lives of indigenous people and empower them to be able to meet and control the challenges of a rapidly changing world. Part of BNKS’s work is the promotion of indigenous culture and traditions both amongst indigenous people themselves and to people who are less aware of indigenous peoples, hence, they had a large celebration planned for World Indigenous Day.

The day started with a 300+ people march through Bandarban of local indigenous people. Holding banners, wearing hats, playing traditional instruments and dressed in cultural clothing. It was a fun occasion with everyone looking great in their beautiful clothing, but, this being Bangladesh the march started an hour late so by the time we finished the midday sun was high in the sky and beating down with all its fury. This didn’t affect the locals much, but a poor pale Englishman looked like he’d had a bucket of water thrown over him but this didn’t stop excited photographers snapping his picture to preserve his sub-aqua look.

Throughout the day there was an exhibition of indigenous arts and crafts – clothing, pictures, tools, artefacts and musical instruments. The evening involved a talk on indigenous people, and whilst it was mostly in Bangla and, therefore, difficult to fully understand, the passion and dedication of the speakers to the indigenous peoples was easy to discern. The highlight was the cultural dance program which followed. Performers from different traditional communities danced and sung all wearing their beautiful traditional dress. The spectacle was quite stunning.

 

 

 

 

 

Bus Trips, Conference and Water Falls 

For the last 2 months a significant amount of both mine and Joe’s, a fellow UK VSO, has been taken up organising the Annual VSO Conference. The theme, which we decided, was ‘Realising a Rights Based Approach in Bangladesh’. In short – how to use ideas of human rights in development in Bangladesh. The organisation was a lot of work involving visiting hotels, researching rights, editing presentations, booking buses and ordering paper clips – at times it seemed endless. Even getting to the conference was a hassle as floods had cut the main road to Bandarban meaning that no buses were available. Instead, Miriam (who had paid a visit to Bandarban) and I had to travel by jeep, cart, rickshaw and a 2km trek through the rain just to get to the main Chittagong road and catch a bus. Once the conference kicked off things went reasonably smoothly and the learning generated is potentially really beneficial for VSO-Bangladesh and I certainly learnt a lot about rights which will prove very useful for me in the future. A bonus (albeit it took a 2 ½ hour bus trip to get to) was visiting a beautiful waterfall. Bangladesh is such a flat country that seeing water plunging 20m over cliff was a real novelty and the lush green area around it really made for a nice break with all my VSO friends.

World Indigenous Day